The utilization of solar radiation for producing useful chemical products and the production of useful energy has heretofore been hindered by economic considerations. The surface area of land which must be utilized to obtain useful amounts of solar energy, even in solar energy rich environments such as U.S. desert areas, is enormous using currently available solar energy collectors. All such solar collections need to be mounted and supported on land, in suitable disposition for solar energy collection. Even the mounting and supporting structures required to cover a sufficient land area to support enough conventional solar collectors to supply large amounts of power therefrom are prohibitively expensive.
A further difficulty with solar energy utilization arises from the fact that solar energy needs to be absorbed, and converted to a different energy form for utilization, the absorbing function and the converting function being best conducted at locations remote from one another for most efficient energy conversion. The solar energy absorption process should make most efficient use of the limited periods of maximum incidence of solar energy, i.e. exposure to direct sunlight. The conversion process can equally well be conducted continuously, independently of the presence or absence of direct incident sunlight, so that best overall efficiencies are accomplished by separately locating the absorbing and converting function. In this way, one function does not hinder or interfere with the other.